Tinker Bell turns 3 June 27, 2011 – Posted in: Family

It’s always a bittersweet day in the life of a Mom when our children turn another year older. I didn’t get the emotion until I started having kids and now I find myself weepy and nostalgic about how quickly the years are flying by. I had such a weekend as we celebrated Sofie’s third birthday!

                          

Normally we throw these huge parties with lots of family that take me days to prepare for and are absolutely exhausting. But with Grandpa just dying and my whole family still reeling from the loss, I wasn’t up to a huge party this year. So we decided to keep it low key and just have my immediate family over for pizza lunch on her actual birthday.

I had big plans to make her a cute pant and shirt set similar to the Barbie outfit I made for a friend’s daughter recently. Then I decided to make a freezer paper stencil on the shirt and just make the pants. But we lost our power for 10 hours Friday night because a storm knocked a tree down, which took out the power lines! So under a severe time crunch, I just got the pants done. I’m sorry your outfit wasn’t as grand as I’d planned, Sof!

                          

Since I knew there was only going to be my girls and my nieces, I decided to make little party favor bags instead of our traditional pinata. They were extremely inexpensive to make, and turned out really cute! I adorned the outside of each bag with a Tinker Bell hair clip I made, using one I bought from a friend as an example.

I also made these adorable gumball necklaces I stumbled across on the internet recently. My sister tries to avoid artificial dyes in her girls diets, so I was over the moon when I found pearly white gumballs at Party City.

                          

They loved them!

My sister came up a few days early to help me make Sofie’s cake. I like to say “help” but really, I had NOTHING to do with it! She’s trying to teach me how to make great fondant cakes after I raved about her abilities following Chloe’s birthday. I mostly sat and watched in awe as she effortlessly crafted a dress, leaves, flowers, and put it all together. Sofie was in HEAVEN.

                          

I wasn’t sure the cake would be enough, so I also made some cupcakes.

I couldn’t find Tinker Bell cupcake toppers but I was able to find big paper confetti. So I glued toothpicks to the back to make my own toppers, and used the leftover confetti to decorate the table!

                          

She was so adorable with her presents! This was the first time ever she didn’t need any help and tore into each package with great excitement. She treated everything like it was the BEST! GIFT! EVER!

How many little heads can squeeze behind one box?!

                          

After presents she made a wish and blew out the candle on her Tinker Bell cake.

Then we tried to get all 5 girls to cooperate for a picture for my Mom. Not too shabby if you ask me!

And after everyone left, Sofie helped me clean up all the toys they played with throughout the day. Then while The Hubs and Chloe napped on the sofa, we went through all her gifts, one by one, and opened them up. I let her stay up WAY too late playing with all her new toys because she was having a blast!!

                          

Happy Birthday sweet Sofie! We love you and are so proud of the amazing little girl you’re becoming!!